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Synopsis

The Supreme Court has proposed to appoint a committee consisting of former women High Court judges, namely, Justice Gita Mittal, Justice Shalini Joshi and Justice Asha Menon, to look into diverse aspects of humanitarian nature such as rehabilitation, restoration etc in violence-stricken Manipur.

Said committed, headed by Justice Mittal shall be looking into aspects like relief, remedial measures, rehabilitation, restoration of homes and religious places etc.

A bench of CJI DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra has further proposed to appoint former IPS officer, Dattatray Padsalgikar, who has wide experience to oversee the investigation by CBI.

"...on the 16 FIRs relating to sexual offences to be transferred to CBI..what we propose to do is that, we are not going to supplant CBI, at the same time to make sure there is sense of faith..we are proposing to direct that there shall be 5 officers at least of Dy. SP rank from various states, who will be brought from different states on deputation to CBI to oversee these investigations...", the bench has further ordered.

At the start of the hearing, Attorney General R Venkataramani had informed the bench that 42 SITs across 6 districts were to be constituted to deal with the FIRs registered in the past three months.

On this, the bench has said that it would like to do bring somebody in from outside to oversee the investigations. "We will also propose that these SITs should be supervised by 6 DIG rank officers from outside the state of Manipur..to monitor..", the bench added.

Last week, the Supreme Court had called out the Manipur state's police forces for carrying out a tardy investigation into the various incidents of violence that occurred throughout the state in the past two months.

While relying on the preliminary status report submitted by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, CJI DY Chandrachud had directed that DGP, Manipur be present before Court today at 2 PM to answer its queries.

Court had further observed that the police has not been in charge of the situation for the last two months and no law and order has been maintained by them.

Notably, Supreme Court had said earlier that merely handing over the probe into the incident of sexual assault and violence on two women in violence-hit Manipur, to the CBI was not enough. 

"..we have to rebuild lives now..so what better way than having some objective assistance of a court trusted committee..not just the state government..we have to instill confidence now in the people", the court had observed.

The Union government in July had informed the Supreme Court that the "unfortunate and unacceptable" incident of sexual assault and violence on two women in violence-hit Manipur, has been transferred to the CBI.

It had also requested the apex court to transfer the trial in the case outside Manipur with a direction that the trial should be conducted in a time bound manner within six months after the filing of the chargesheet.

Case Title: DINGANGLUNG GANGMEI vs. MUTUM CHURAMANI MEETEI & ORS.